| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: concerned, the conduct lies with us; and with your help, I laugh at
danger.'
'It may be so,' said Seraphina, sighing. 'It is elsewhere that I
see danger. The people, these abominable people - suppose they
should instantly rebel? What a figure we should make in the eyes of
Europe to have undertaken an invasion while my own throne was
tottering to its fall!'
'Nay, madam,' said Gondremark, smiling, 'here you are beneath
yourself. What is it that feeds their discontent? What but the
taxes? Once we have seized Gerolstein, the taxes are remitted, the
sons return covered with renown, the houses are adorned with
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: circle in which these personages are about to act to find the
coefficient reasons of events which take place in the very highest
spheres of social life.
Mademoiselle Gamard spent her evenings by rotation in six or eight
different houses. Whether it was that she disliked being obliged to go
out to seek society, and considered that at her age she had a right to
expect some return; or that her pride was wounded at receiving no
company in her house; or that her self-love craved the compliments she
saw her various hostesses receive,--certain it is that her whole
ambition was to make her salon a centre towards which a given number
of persons should nightly make their way with pleasure. One morning as
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: lion's grip on my thigh loosened, and he stood over me, swaying to and
fro, his huge mouth, from which the blood was gushing, wide opened.
Then he roared, and the sound shook the rocks.
"To and fro he swung, and then the great head dropped on me, knocking
all the breath from my body, and he was dead. My bullet had entered in
the centre of his chest and passed out on the right side of the spine
about half way down the back.
"The pain of my wound kept me from fainting, and as soon as I got my
breath I managed to drag myself from under him. Thank heavens, his
great teeth had not crushed my thigh-bone; but I was losing a great deal
of blood, and had it not been for the timely arrival of Tom, with whose
Long Odds |
